Google menu bar is black on the Web and Images pages (not the other menu links) only when running Safari. OK on Chrome and Firefox. How did this happen why? Is there a fix. This is extremely irritating!!!

But there are changes coming to the navigation bar (I think). Looking at this screenshot of the redesigned Bookmarks in Chrome 13 (already out in beta form), there's a ES option in the navigation bar and a red CONFIDENTIAL label on it.

jasonvaritekfan: That "ES" on the bar in the screenshot you found must stand for Emerald Sea, the social service possibly also known as Circles that must be being tested internally. (The CONFIDENTIAL label, connected to some kind of share count, also appeared in a screenshot that appeared on Techcrunch some time last year.)

I use google ncr normally and thought the bar used to be blue until today when I open the ie. The bar has turned to black so I thought the bar has rotten. I thought of suggesting improvement on farming skill to google :P

Ok, joking aside. I suspect few possibilities like google being hacked or google changed its color recently, and it seems like the odd is latter.

Last night it was white with blue lettering. Today, black with dull white lettering. It's ugly. I run an iMac with Safari. Maybe it's to represent a "black armband" in response to the FCC investigation.

I am so tired that companies try to streamline everything to the Smartphones today.

I overheard in the subway "I only use my phone for browsing and chatting". WTF???If every SW developer have to match thier prefered Smartphone developer i fear for the future of good IT buisness.Hopefully poeple will realize, that a computer is safer and faster than crap phone.@Google: Either change the color back or make the user choose thier own color.

Oh my god i do NOT like the black google bar. It is hard to read. Also it is just plain annoying. Spent ages restoring IE8 thinking i had corrupt file. Thanks google half a day wasted trying to fix something that you did on purpose.....Please take the black away....

I am in Australia and have www.google.com.au (IE8) as my home page. Today i have that black bar going accross my google toolbar. I hate it. It is hard to read and is just annoying. I then went to www.google.com (IE8) and there is no black bar so for now i have that set as my home page. Come on Google please take away the black toolbar as it is too hard to read

There actually a way to get rid of this new toolbar. You just need to delete google cookies, and then relogin(if you was logged in) in your google account. I dont know which specific cookie is responsible for this new toolbar color, so just plain delete all google cookies. For firefox, you can read how to delete cookies here https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Deleting%20cookies

And why the beep you beep around with and break the things which made me in past switch to Google from Yahoo???

Google slowly gets into the frenzy where you feel need to change something just to change something.

I was so in love with Google of 7-8 years go: sticking to the essentials, minimalistic yet smart(!!!) design, in stark contract to the ever more bloated Yahoo. The "smart" is gone now. As is the "minimalistic." Ironically recent Yahoo is slowly getting the hang of "slim and lean" - while Google design get more bloated, distracting, design-by-committee type of thing. History repeating.

they problem with this type of soft rollout/test is that I didn't get any notification about it in advance. As a security professional, my first thought was that it was malware or spyware which had hijacked my browser, and was displaying content (google) in iframe.

Aesthetically, I do not prefer it. The affection for google is in the clean search landing page (without igoogle) and this has sharp contrast between black bar and white page... perhaps 'blackle' type UI would be better, but for today I prefer the classic interface.

I'd even allow some kind of permanent google cookie or lso on my computer that would put google web search back to white.The black bar is distracting and reminds me of a particular website from the early 90's...

Unlike Google's competitors (Bing, Yahoo, etc.)Google's success has been because of it's simplicity and clean interface.

Monumental fail...Google, if you must experiment, give users an option to TURN IT OFF! That way you can tell exactly how unpopular it is, and kill the ill-fated program that ever recommended inserting an ugly, interface-clogging black bar on the home page.

I *hate* this stupid black bar!!! It is totally distracting. How do I get rid of it? It's all I see on every google page, every google doc - I can hardly concentrate for the stupid thing looming over everything.

I absolutely hate this black bar! As an older person, I have a hard time seeing the words under this black color. Let us decide what we want and like and not you. You need to ask us. As the saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't change it!"

i do not want this horrible black bar distracting me - its an intrusion into my personal space - like an annoying bug - at least give me the option to change it - otherwise I'll use a different web browser - very very soon

And another reason to kill it: When viewed on an LCD under a non-perfect angle the gray text on black they use for anything but the current "tab" is *INVISIBLE*. How can they be so incredibly stupid??????

For now Google.com *is* my home page. If they persist in this nonsense, that will soon be *was*.

Mine showed up today..guess its a gradual roll out. am in Nairobi.Still not sure what to think of it.. am kinda used to the old plain google, non hyped, basic, fast and concentrated on its core business.

I applaud personal choice. As for making apps, OS and devices look the same... not only UGH (Google—WHAT were you thinking?!) but inefficient! This visual cue tells me what OS, application and/or device I'm using, basically where I am. Those cues make me faster because of muscle memory. I have different key commands for the same action in different environments (e.g. Mac vs. PC or InDesign vs. QuarkXPress); because of this, I feel or sense when I'm using the wrong key command for where I am. So... for those whose lives are made better by indistinguishable cues — go for it. Keep the black bar. But don’t make everyone else suffer!

just let us know in advance so we would not think it is a bug or virus; used malware and virus scannings for no reason, wasted alot of time being mad and perplexed. give option to return to prior color if we want to.

Stop changing things. The weekly google UI change. Try and keep up. Asinine. It was fine the way it was. Value familiarity. Stop changing things. WHERE IN THE @#$% IS THE *OPTION* - back in the 90s with software we had basic options to select the color you want - I'm telling you google is anti-user-choice.

another stupid annoyance from the company that used to be clean and functional.Added to the other stupidities like hidden sign out gmail button, the dysfunctional google images where you have to click all the time "switch to basic version", the side bar, and keep counting.

GOOGLE: please stop... i hate how i dont have the option anywhere easily noticeable to MAKE IT STOP! :D i just want plain clean, normal google screen. no fancy. just plain. thats what I like about google in the first place.

I have (fairly common) vision problems, and this new (I saw it for the first time several minutes ago) black bar is almost impossible for me to read without leaning in until my eyes are just inches from the screen. Bad idea!

I have it, too. It's weird how people can complain over such a trivial little thing, though! I don't mind it, since it's so small, and I think this is just like complaining about the Google logo of the day: if you don't like it, just ignore it. It's that simple.

I noticed the black bar a couple of days ago. I do not like it at all. It is very intrusive with the colors I have chosen for my iGoogle home page. I am seeing the black navigation bar on Firefox (my preferred browser) and on IE. I hope this is not a permanent change. I would like to have the old color back for the bar.

Bye Google! I'm headed to Bing or some other homepage and search engine. You were clean, functional, sparse even, but that's all I needed. The black bar annoys and you failed to give-notice on how to change it. It was bad enough that you listed my search results starting with those who apparently paid to be top-of-the-pile and were garbage. You've gone the Microsoft route so I might as well head to Bing. Or maybe Opera. Suggestions group?

I like the old simplicity, because it's a *neutral* starting point. I open Google and I can go anywhere, there's no sense that someone sat down and drew up a map for me of where they think I should go. It's an open field- white page, functional-looking blue links, and of course the logo.

When I bring up a google page, far more often than not I just want to do a search. I don't want to check my email, know what the temperature is outside, know what the latest news headlines are, or be impressed by the latest batch of too-clever-by-half web designers who managed to sell Google on the "need" to revamp a webpage that's worked perfectly well for them for years. If I want anything but that search line, I will type in the URL, or run a search for it *from* the search line. I don't need Google waving it in my face to find it.

Google isn't where I go to have random bits of content shoved in my face. Google is where I go when I already know what I want, because I trust them to show me how to get there. I don't want them trying to distract me with random content that 95% of the time isn't what I care about.

I want the Google home page to be visually simple, fast to load, and *not* cluttered with distractions. I like the functional look of the page for years, and would be just as happy if they got rid of the black bar. I mean, does that add function? Is dark gray text on black somehow easier for people to read than blue on white was? Sheesh.

Google is going Apple: Arbitrary, tyrannical, stupid, user un-friendly. This week only they have introduced that horrible, unsolicited, unchangeable black bar, and... don't forget, the very annoying "people widget". Another two reason to warm up into hating Google.

I hate the black bar. It is difficult to read the wording. Eyesight not the best, please don't make it more difficult What happened to the map section too. Please do not change what is good. How can I get things back to where they were?

As of today, ALL browsers show the dark color navigation bar on the Google search main page.

It is hideous, disgusting, and smacks of arrogance. It's just like how Google Instant is shoved down our throats as the default setting. Newsflash: Google Instant is highly annoying, near to _worthless_ for oriental languages such as Chinese, Japanese etc., and I do not want a search engine to second guess my search.

When you're number 1 with no real competition for a long time, you will become complacent and arrogant. I think this is part of human nature.

I changed my homepage to Yahoo, really hate this stupid black bar. Google has become too big to listen the users, they do whatver they like. But there are other search tools available. I will never use Google's page anymore.

To everyone who hates the black bar, bet you said the same thing when google chrome first changed it's icon from 3D ball to a more sleeker one... Stop whining. Give it some time. I don't like it much either but i'm not going to let my "i'm used to white" feeling get in the way of a change.

Also have this black line now. No choice. This comes after disturbing doodles making you afraid of having your mouse on screen while working. This raises the question : shall I keep Google as my default screen like it was for years, since it was "just" (so) simple and (so) useful.. I'll have to consider moving to something else. Strange marketing, why do they give user no choice to stay basic ? I left yahoo for a similar process a long time ago..

And please, are you seriously threatening to switch over to the 'crowded' homepage of yahoo over google just over a black bar?

I like yahoo now and then, especially for flickr(way better than picasa)but The reason Google dominates in search is because of its simplistic interface. people don't want extra info like news etc.. when all they want to do is search.

Ah...finally someone who does not mind the black bar and also knows about the Google plus project - must be some Google designer trying to convince that this black bar is really good for us...of course they know better that we stupid users.

Using Google India. This black bar is absolutely hideous. Google is smacking of full-blown arrogance. Whoever likes this atrociousness can keep it, but atleast give us an option to revert back to the original. Do not shove this hideousness down our throats. Absolutely HATE it.

I too really don't like this black bar and wish I could choose a pastel colour. Why is the AdSense at the top of a page a very subtle (nearly invisible) pastel colour yet the navigation bar is bang in my face and makes the page look shorter??

How about give the users a choice. Give the users easy-to-find OPTIONS to turn things off and preserve the way it was, or to choose the color they want, after all it's called SOFT-ware not HARD-ware and it would be easy for google to provide options for this, instead it's just scarce options - hardly any choice for the UI - I'm telling you it's arrogance and "look at what we can do ha ha" and google IS OPPOSED TO USER CHOICE AND GRANULAR USER OPTIONS. THERE SHOULD BE AN OUTRAGE.

The black bar is ugly, and the lack of contrast probably well-nigh impossible to read for many people with vision difficulties. And what's with the really annoying 2-pixel high red bar in the top-left corner? It makes it look as if there's something up there that's scrolled off the screen.

Please make this a configurable option so folks can change the default and put it back to blue on whit ... or equally change it to lime-green on orange if that's what they prefer. Without that I think a lot of accessibility organisations are going to be up in arms about this.